To The Devil... A Daughter

 

Picture: B-     Sound: C+     Extras: B     Film: B-

 

 

Going out with more of a bang than a whimper, Hammer Studios tried another Satanic thriller with To The Devil… A Daughter (1976), but it was too late and the company allowed themselves to be buried by American studio competition and British film implosion.  It is a better film than The Devil Rides Out (reviewed elsewhere on this site) from eight years before.

 

This film scored a coop by having Richard Widmark as a writer on the Occult taking on Satanist Christopher Lee in yet another adaptation of a Dennis Wheatly novel.  Why did Hammer keep making films from the same author over and over again?  Who knows, but not having more material to pull from could not have helped the studio either.  Having Denholm Elliott and Honor Blackman in this film was a plus and the Satanism is not laughable or limited like Devil Rides Out was, while Nastassja Kinski was the female victim; a nun for Satanic sacrifice.  The screenplay by Christopher Wicking and John Peacock (and an uncredited Gerald Vaughan-Hughes, who penned Ridley Scott’s The Duelists) was well written, and the directing by Peter Sykes is pretty good too, but the film still could not catch up to what Hollywood was delivering.

 

The trailers mention both Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, but it was beaten out by the first Omen film, which was more effective.  However, this film had its problems in being unnecessarily edited and self-willed producers at the studio still did not get the hint that they needed to compete with the Hollywood product.  Seeing this film uncut, you can see how it could have at least made money on the coattails of the The Omen, but that opportunity was lost.  The visual effects in the film are simple, but effective, though one in the climax is controversial as to how ineffective it has been for too many.  I did not find it as much of a problem, because it was at least logical.  Plus, the dialogue exchange between Lee and Widmark at the end is classic.  That alone makes this film worth catching.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.66 X 1 image is decent, was shot by cinematographer David Watkin, and was processed by Technicolor.  At this point, the company had discontinued the dye-transfer process in America, but was still used in England until 1978, so some such prints may have been struck there.  At it stands, this transfer is not dye-transfer, but has good color.  It should be said that more than a few moments seem to be inspired visually by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but Kubrick himself would have the last word about that style being used in a supernatural way with his The Shining four years later and did those Satanic masks not surface in his Eyes Wide Shut?  That is a comparison all Horror, Hammer, Kubrick, and film fans must see.  The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono comes from the original optical mono (RCA) sound, and the music score by Paul Glass is more like what Hammer needed by then.  Too bad the studio was about to collapse.

 

Besides bio/filmographies for Lee and Widmark, the original trailer, and a poster/stills gallery, there is the documentary whose title sums up everything.  To The Devil… The Death of Hammer tells about how this film was the last one was the one they hoped could save the studio.  It is one of the best they did in the 1970s, but it just did not do the trick, especially with all the money going to other financing entities.  This is also worth watching as a true insider’s view of international filmmaking.

 

It turns out this was ambitiously approached filmmaking and the German co-producing allowed the film to go abroad, yet it still retained the Hammer flavor.  Sadly for us all, this film was a few years too late, and Hammer was gone.  However, the influence of Hammer’s output was loved and influential to the end.  The old monster died hard and as of this writing, along with the massive DVD releases of many a Hammer title, a new Hammer Studio is plotting to launch what they hope will be a new era.  With as bad, tired, and overly graphic as to be laughable films now, this is one monster that ought to rise again.  That is why it is a particularly good time to see To The Devil… A Daughter.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo